22

Temple Exploring

Location: Bali

Today was fantastic! As we have been waiting to receive our new radar, we have been having some adventures around Bali. This morning we did a reflective exercise with black and white postcards, and through the process, I think we learned a lot more about each other. After that, went left to go to a temple with a natural spring that Balinese locals go to to wash away evil spirits. We packed some PB & J’s, split up into two vans and enjoyed a scenic route with rice patties and greenery in all directions. Our taxi driver took us to a different temple at first and there we stopped and got some Nescafes and plantain chips for the last leg of the car ride.

When we arrived at the temple, we put on sarongs and took in our surroundings alongside the locals. There was a large pond with probably the most gigantic Koi I have ever seen. It was really cute watching the little kids feed the fish. At one corner of the temple, there was a group of about thirty women preparing offerings with what looked like yellow play-dough. Apparently there was a holiday today!

Like the locals, we got into the natural spring with all of our clothes on and made some wishes. Basically, the spring is an old stone swimming hole with about nine different fountains jutting out of a temple. At every fountain, you close your hands, make a wish and then splash water on your head. The second to last fountain we had to avoid because it is used to pray and cleanse yourself if someone had passed away, therefore, it was bad luck to splash yourself with it. I think everyone really enjoyed themselves and appreciated the more local experience!

When we came back to the boat, we began passage prep, ate cheeseburgers and enjoyed our guest Linda, an ActionQuest staff member that happens to be in Bali at the time. Tomorrow, I believe we are going to do sailing drills. It was a very memorable and pleasant day!